Energy Storage Investments Boom As Battery Costs Halve in the Next Decade

BNEF’s Energy Storage Outlook 2019, published today, predicts a further halving of lithium-ion battery costs per kilowatt-hour by 2030, as demand takes off in two different markets – stationary storage and electric vehicles. The report goes on to model the impact of this on a global electricity system increasingly penetrated by low-cost wind and solar.

Logan Goldie-Scot, head of energy storage at BNEF, added: “In the near term, renewables-plus-storage, especially solar-plus-storage, has become a major driver for battery build. This is a new era of dispatchable renewables, based on new contract structures between developer and grid.”

Just 10 countries are on course to represent almost three quarters of the global market in gigawatt terms, according to BNEF’s forecast. South Korea is the lead market in 2019, but will soon cede that position, with China and the U.S. far in front by 2040.

The total demand for batteries from the stationary storage and electric transport sectors is forecast to be 4,584GWh by 2040.